Tuesday's editorial on the Star Bulletin describes the phony abstinence ed so well
http://starbulletin.com/2004/12/28/editorial/commentary.html
Imagine a driver's education course where teachers show students grisly photos of traffic accidents but never teach them how to actually drive, stop at red lights, use turn signals, buckle their seat belts -- but then put them behind the wheel.
Now you have a pretty good idea of what abstinence-only sexuality education is like. Abstinence-only programs try to scare and shame the sex out of teens and adults, teaching only the negative consequences of sexuality without ever telling young people what they can do to stay safe and healthy.
Researchers at Columbia University found that while virginity "pledge" programs did help some participants delay sex for six months, 88 percent still had premarital sex. The rates of sexually transmitted infections among those who pledged abstinence showed no difference from non-pledgers. However, those who pledged virginity were less likely to use contraception when they did have sex, and were less likely to seek testing and treatment when they had an STI.
My comments - just look at Britney Spears comment when she first started to become popular. She said that one should wait until marriage to have sex. Of course, later on, she admitted that she did the opposite.
Conservatives want you to think Britney Spears is the only person on Earth who pledged virginity but later had pre-marital sex. In reality, THOUSANDS of girls did just that - pledged to remain abstinent before marriage, then later have pre-marital sex after making the pledge.
Why does this happen? It's easy to repeat what your parents and your ministers say when you are 14 years old. At that point in life, you still didn't have much life experience. But as one gets older, one will likely have a boyfriend/girlfriend, do the kissing & hugging, be in a room alone. Then once that happens, NATURE takes over. All virginity pledges of the past is ignored or forgotten. Sex happens.
The only difference between Britney and all those other girls who break their pledge is the papparazzis follow every move Britney makes.
And girls who grew up with conservative thoughts are just as likely to get horny with a boyfriend when in a room alone. NATURE takes over. Any conservative thought NATURALLY goes out the window when NATURE takes over. However, the conservative girl isn't mentally prepared for it all to happen because all the lectures of "sex being bad". So she isn't likely thinking of contraception when things get hot, because she hasn't mentally prepared for that moment. Meanwhile, the more liberal girl probably thought through the whole thing many times before the moment even happens. So that girl is mentally prepared to bring up contraception when the moment gets hot.
So the best way to get kids prepared for THAT MOMENT is to (gasp) talk about the (gasp) existence of contraceptions. Just like we give shoulder pads and helmets to kids playing tackle football, we give contraceptions to the even greater number of kids who sooner or later, will have that moment where nature takes over and sex begin. It will happen regardless of how much conservative correctness the kids have heard throughout their lives.
